Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking his intervention in procuring Covid-19 vaccines on priority basis for all people of West Bengal so as to ensure the health and well being of those involved in the upcoming Assembly election process.

Banerjee has pointed out that all people would be forced to go to the polling booths without any vaccination coverage. So the state government wants to purchase the vaccines from designated points on top priority basis. Along with this, as per her announcement in January, Banerjee further informed Modi that her government would give the vaccines free of cost to all people of the state.

Drawing attention to “an important public health issue”, Banerjee wrote that the state government has embarked upon the Covid vaccination programme in right earnest with all the health workers, police workers, municipal workers, revenue workers and other frontline workers being covered at a rapid pace.

“In fact West Bengal being an election-going state we are required to reach out practically to every government and parastatal employee on an urgent basis to make the election safe. However the worrying point is that in the ensuing elections the people in general will be forced to go to the polling stations without any vaccination coverage. We feel that it is equally important to reach out to them with the rapid vaccination program immediately for interest of health and well-being of all concerned with the election process,” she wrote.

“Under the circumstances government of West Bengal has decided to procure adequate number of vaccines for the members of the public at large. We would request you to kindly take up the matter with appropriate authority so that the state government is able to purchase the vaccines from designated points on top priority basis because the West Bengal government wants to provide vaccination free of cost to all the people,” her letter read.

Earlier, Banerjee had requested the central government to supply adequate vaccines for not only frontline workers but also others.

Last week, state chief secretary Alapan Bandopadhyay had said seven lakh people have already been identified for inoculation till now and announced that the state government would vaccinate all government and parastatal employees free of cost in phases.

Banerjee’s letter came on a day when the Union health ministry announced that people above 60 years and those more than 45 years having comorbidity will be vaccinated from 1 March.

Union minister Prakash Javadekar has announced that people would be administered vaccines free of cost across 10,000 government centers and at more than 20,000 private vaccination centers. He said that those who want to get vaccinated from private hospitals will have to pay and the amount will be decided by the health ministry within 3-4 days as they are in discussion with manufacturers and hospitals.

The Union health ministry has already asked Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir and Chhattisgarh to expedite the vaccination of healthcare and frontline workers so as to ensure immunity in the shortest possible time-frame in the wake of a rising trend of Covid19 cases and positively rate in some districts.